The great buffalo (gnat) hunt

Well, it’s been a quiet week in my hometown. And if you believe that, I’ve got some coastal land in New Jersey you’re gonna be crazy about.
I guess it’s the warmer weather, or maybe it’s the buffalo gnats, but folks seem to have been moving a little faster lately. Going places, doing things, getting involved, and getting bitten.
If you haven’t been bitten by a buffalo gnat in the last couple of weeks, you really haven’t been trying. The vicious little blood suckers have been everywhere.
In an area restaurant last Thursday, I happened to strike up a conversation with a fellow who was passing through the Grand Prairie on business.. He asked me if I could explain some rather odd behavior he had witnessed on the part of some folks in the area. I told him that I was not an Arkansas native and could not speak on behalf of the native fauna, but I knew a good deal about odd behavior, having practiced quite a bit of it at one time.
The fellow said he had seen two young women walking along the side of the highway, tossing their long, dark hair around in a most peculiar manner. They weren’t doing anything else unusual that he could see, but this strange hair-tossing ritual intrigued him.
Having served as a buffet table for buffalo gnats quite recently myself, I understood at once what these two young women had been doing. They were using their tresses to ward off the winged interlopers.
This explanation failed to satisfy the inquisitive traveling man. He was dubious that the local insect life was really all that annoying.
“Where are you from?” I asked him.
“Nashville, Tennessee,” he responded.
“Ever been to the Grand Prairie before?”
“No, this is my first trip.”
“Before coming into this restaurant, when was the last time you were out of your car?”
“”I stopped for gas in Memphis.”
Let me say, gentle readers, before telling you what happened next, that I do not hold this up as model behavior. In fact, I would discourage anyone from acting as I did. We need to be nicer to city folks. They live very close together, and in very large numbers. This tends to make them believe some very strange things. Apparently, it also makes them uncommonly willing to do some very strange things.
But I hadn’t pulled off any devilment in quite a while, and this guy was just asking for it. I suppose the wicked side of my nature just got the better of me.
“Tell you what, neighbor,” I said in my kindest, most salesmanlike voice, “step outside with me for a moment.” He did. (Editor’s note: What did P.T. Barnum say was born every minute?)
“Now what?” he asked innocently.
“Just stand there in the shade while I walk over to my car.”
“Okay.”
I saw him in my rear view mirror as I pulled out of the parking lot. It started with a slap to his cheek. Then came a quick slap to his neck on the other side. Next he tried to slap the backs of both of his forearms at the same time.
Unsuccessfully.
By the time I turned into the street, the traveling man was doing a funny looking combination of the bugaloo, the hully-gully, the two-step and the last act of Swan Lake as he tried to fish his keys out of his pocket and open the car door without slowing down his gnat-swatting efforts.
I know, I know. You don’t have to say it. I’m just a stinker.